What do you really want?” asks Danneels, cutting the victim off by saying he already knows the story and doesn’t need to hear it again. When the man says “I give you the responsibility, I can’t decide … you should do what you think should be done, because I don’t know how this whole system works.”

“Do you want this to be made public?” the cardinal asks. “I leave that to you,” the victim responds. Then Danneels begins his effort to convince him to keep the lid on the problem: “The bishop will step down next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait.”

“No, I can’t agree that he takes his leave in glory, I can’t do that,” the victim replies.

The transcript is too long for me to translate all of it here and the only English version I’ve seen is too rough to be recommended. In any case, the exchange only gets worse. At one point, Danneels ducks and weaves trying to fend off the victim’s pleas to inform the Church hierarchy about Vangheluwe’s misdeeds. He says he has no authority over the bishop, only the pope does. When the victim suggests Danneels arrange a meeting with the pope, the cardinal gives the flip reply: “The pope isn’t that easy to reach.” A little later, he says: “I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.”

At another point, Danneels suggests the victim admit his guilt and ask for forgiveness. “Who do I have to ask forgiveness from?” the surprised man asks. When the cardinal remarks that going public would put the bishop in a quandary, the victim replies: “I’ve been living my whole life in a quandary … I was brought up Catholic. I see the institution is wavering, I read the newspapers and so I think I have a duty to do this. How can I get my children to believe something that has such a background? I can’t. That’s just always shoving it onto the next generation. And everything stays the same. That’s not what the Church is for.”

When Danneels suggests the victim may be trying to blackmail the Church, the man pleads with him to take up this case, saying there has to be someone in the Church who can handle it because he cannot bring himself to expose his uncle on his own. “We were forced to get married by him, our children were baptised by him, how can I explain this to them?” he asked. “Yesterday I said to my oldest son, look, this is what happened to me. They must know what has happened.”

The exchange goes on with Danneels repeatedly arguing he has no power to do anything and that the whole story would come out if Vangheluwe were forced to resign. That’s when the victim asked: “Why do you feel so sorry for him and not for me? … You’re always trying to defend him. I thought I was going to get some support, but I have to sit here and defend myself against things I can’t do anything about.”

There’s more, but you get the drift. I apologize for the long quote, but it’s important to read the details here, to get a sense of how morally repulsive the Belgian cardinal’s actions are. This is the kind of man Pope Francis chose as a Synod on the Family father.

There are other reasons why the wicked Danneels, who the retired archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, has no business at a Synod on the Family (read about them here). But his behavior in the Vangheluwe case is the most outrageous. Pope Francis can apologize all he wants to the victims, but his favoring of Danneels, who by his own account helped engineer Francis’s accession to the papal throne via his “mafia club,” speaks louder, and more definitively.

This Danneels scandal was widely reported at the time. There is no way that Francis didn’t know about it before he appointed this elderly cretin to the Synod. If this Pope really understood what the abuse scandal has done to victims and their families, and to the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church and its leadership, the thought of appointing Danneels to the Synod on the Family — the Family! — would have been unthinkable.

It is always, always, always more important to watch what popes and bishops do about sex abuse rather than to listen to what they say. Talk is cheap grace.

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41 Responses to What Francis Does vs. What He Says

The Bishop realizes that the rot is so deep and pervasive, obviously not just this one case, that the institution itself would fall if the truth came out to its trusting members. It makes all of the rhetoric of the past about Catholicism not to seem to be exaggerated hyperbole, but accurate. So all the talk of “the scarlet lady” and “the whore of Babylon” are after all true. What a thoroughly wicked institution, reporting more to the devil than God, is the picture you paint. What a complete disservice to Christ. It’s not possible this could be a true church since this has been going on for centuries. And you think Trump is “bunga bunga”? The man’s a saint – if only in comparison.

I don’t understand why you link to lifesitenews.com as a reputable source.

I’m not defending Daneels nor am I defending the Pope’s choice, but you have been accused of an apocalyptic tone here on your blog and have acknowledged it.

The first step away from such a tone would, I think, be to resist linking to sources that not only have a clear agenda, but dress that agenda in histrionics.

I have not listened to the recording so I can’t really speak to the Daneels thing on this post, but I don’t trust that lifesite or Pentin report with the greatest accuracy.

That said, I think the Pope would have been wise not to have appointed Daneels, this I can agree with, but only because there is doubt about him, if not complete accuracy.

I also have to wonder why we are only hearing about these things from these sources. Why isn’t John Allen reporting on it? He certainly has reported on the Chilean Bishop’s appointment.

[NFR: The Danneels transcript report was from Reuters. All of this was reported fully in 2010, even if you are only just now hearing about it. There is nothing histrionic about outrage over what Danneels did. There is no getting around this. Francis had to have known about it, and felt that it didn’t disqualify Danneels from contributing his pastoral wisdom toward guiding the Catholic family. That is inexcusable. — RD]

“The Bishop realizes that the rot is so deep and pervasive, obviously not just this one case”

I am no fan of Card. Danneels, but such extreme generalization is obviously absurd (and in fact, insulting) to anybody who has participated in Catholic life (and to the average bishop) around the world, and even in the US. Plenty of human weakness and sin, sure, as should be expected. “Pervasive rot” in a unfortunate few places, but across the world-wide Church certainly not (except in your imagination, apparently).

So all the talk of “the scarlet lady” and “the whore of Babylon” are after all true. What a thoroughly wicked institution, reporting more to the devil than God, is the picture you paint. What a complete disservice to Christ. It’s not possible this could be a true church since this has been going on for centuries.

If the Devil wanted to attack the true Church, he couldn’t have found a better way to do that than use wicked prelates in his service to get reactions like yours.

Alas, I thought we saw the back of the likes of Danneels and Kasper when Benedict XVI came in. Francis brought them out of the gutter into which Benedict tossed them. The fact that he did this has always given me great skepticism about Francis’s intentions.

Fran Macadam,
You talk about the “pervasive rot” in the institution, but in fact the rate of molestation cases is higher in secular and non-Catholic Christian institutions than in Catholic institutions. It is understandable, and good, that the Church receive more attention and criticism when it occurs in Catholic institutions — they should be better; more is rightly expected of them. But our priests come from society and so society’s sicknesses are going to turn up.
Newsweek reported:
– Insurance companies do not charge the Catholic Church more for sexual misconduct insurance than other congregations, because their studies find no difference in the rate of misconduct cases.
– The rate of abuse among priests is not greater than among the general male population.http://www.newsweek.com/priests-commit-no-more-abuse-other-males-70625

It would be easier to take this seriously if the man’s name did not sound like a W. C. Fields exclamation. On the other hand, it is difficult to take anything that would come of that oddly costumed heap very seriously. To a non-Catholic it is all just nonsense.

We all knew that Francis would fall off the bicycle eventually. And when he did he bounced a few extra times on his head.

I could not imagine the backlash Pope Benedict would have had had he invited a wicked monster like Daneels to a synod. Has the mainstream media even picked up on this? This Jesuit Pope enjoys a positive narrative in the media despite anything he does or says.

That’s the key thing, here, isn’t it? Without the recording, Danneels is untouched by scandal and nobody knows that, when push came to shove, his moral center proved hollow. It makes me wonder – if a secret recording of every meeting of every Bishop, Archbishop, etc were to suddenly become public, would any of them be untouched by major scandal?

I very much doubt it. You don’t climb that high in a secretive and authoritarian organization like the Catholic Church without getting some dirt on you. I also doubt that the Catholic Church is unique. As far as decent data is available, most experts say that the Catholic Church is no more guilty than any other denomination.

It makes me think about how and why Americans don’t trust any institutions anymore. Not the government, not the media, not the churches, not big business, nobody. Most conservatives think that this is because all of our institutions have been corrupted by liberalism and moral relativity and irreligion and the like. I don’t know what most liberals would ascribe it to, but most progressives I know would agree that these institutions have more or less always been corrupt. One of the greatest triumphs of the left has been to punch some holes in the layers of power that always protect these institutions in order to expose them to sanitizing sunlight. It’s a necessary thing and, ultimately, I’d rather know than not know, even if it means giving up a lot of cherished illusions.

But there are days, man. Days I wish I could be something easier than a liberal. It was a lot easier to make my peace with the world before I learned that so many things I was taught as a child were actually lies told to protect the powerful. Some days, like today, I really see the appeal of sticking my head in the sand and pining for some idealized era like the 50’s, before the facade cracked. Problem is, I can’t unsee and I can’t unlearn. And as an atheist, I have no hope that some god will some day justify all this wickedness and make everything right.

I thought I’d have something to wrap this up and bring it home, but I don’t. It’s looking bleak out there today.

Of course talk is cheap. But people don’t seem to care. A perfect current example is the various presidential debates where all the candidates do is talk…talk…talk and make promises and assertions they have no intention of implementing, but they’re telling people what they want to hear, so who cares? Sounds like Pope Francis is just a creature of our age. “Talk is cheap” also captures my feelings about the BenOp. Writing about it has some value, but really, in the end, the BenOp is about pushing away from forums like, turning off your computer, and getting off the dime, and living and doing the BenOp.

“Talk is cheap grace.” Yes, and so are Papal apologies that don’t even specify the wrongdoings or corrective steps.

Just as Francis’s condemnations never name names, but only use bizarre euphemisms.

But if he is prepared to apologize for having appointed Cdl. Daneels and Bishop Barros to their current positions, I think many people would be pleased to listen to it. Even better might be acting to remove them, of course.

I very much doubt it. You don’t climb that high in a secretive and authoritarian organization like the Catholic Church without getting some dirt on you.

I don’t know about “major scandal.” I think, from what I have seen, a significant number would be touched, more than most Catholics would like to think. Rod has alluded in the past to some unexploded scandals involved some senior prelates, and they’re certainly out there.

Then there are others, especially the younger ones, not touched by major scandal, but probably in some way compromised by the system. They know better now than to do such things – too much scrutiny now – but they’re also reluctant to stick their necks out – to denounce their fellow prelates, or to criticize what’s going on in the Synod.

And then, sometimes, you meet some genuine articles. I have run into a few in my day. They are out there. And as the Church continues to shrink and shed much of its wealth, infrastructure and prestige, we should, I think, be getting more of them. Not many will be signing up for the perks, because there will be few, if any.

Either way, I think we must be grateful to those who decided to record a senior cardinal archbishop in action with a victim and his family. It gave us a rare and direct insight into how business has been conducted in the Church in much of Europe over the past several decades. Daylight is a welcome purifier.

<i.I don’t understand why you link to lifesitenews.com as a reputable source.

I think you’re a little harsh on LifeSite – they are indeed a little histrionic, but they do have some good reporters who do some good journalism.

But that is neither here nor there. The Daneels revelations are multiple sourced now, from credible outlets, including Reuters. And that includes not just this horrible interview, but much else besides, including a Catholic school textbook he approved that attempted to sexualize primary and middle school children in some shocking term (Rod had links to these back on Sept. 25). Maybe it’s not so hard to connect a clergy eager to embrace or overlook pederasty with a clergy eager to hypersexualize the targets. Daneels really is the poster boy for the worst that the Abuse Crisis has to offer in Western Europe. It’s astounding that he hasn’t gotten the Cardinal Law treatment – or it would be, if it weren’t for the suspicion that his extremely progressive politics and theology has almost certainly bought him lowered media and government scrutiny that was never on offer for a nominal conservative like Law.

First, I think Pope Francis is involving those chosen for the Synod on the Family because he wants a clear diversity of opinion. With this, debate can happen, and conclusions can be firmly reached: the end result should be greater clarity, and the cost in the meantime is increased ambiguity. As painful as this is, it is better than having a dominant side represented at an official gathering around the Pope: minority opinions would simply be suppressed leading to future resentment and subterfuge. I offer this as an explanation for why Card. Daneels is anywhere important at all.

I realize that non Catholic institutions could be as bad, but that doesn’t make the situation any more acceptable. In fact, it makes it worse. Now given the fact priests can’t marry, and spend their time unsupervised with other men, that may account for the propensity within this church for buggery.

But I’m not the source of any of the accusations, reporting or confirmed facts. I’m just telling you how bad it looks and my visceral reaction against what Rod and others have revealed.

If even the Pope won’t act against this, that really shows how morally bankrupt it is.

This is all too typical of the behavior we saw time and again in the abuse scandals in the U.S., Ireland and elsewhere. Bishops and their representatives would frequently attempt to intimidate and silence victims by suggesting that the victims had something to apologize for or that there was something wrong with them because they wanted accountability and wouldn’t “forgive poor Father.” It’s sickening to see how they distorted the virtue of forgiveness to conceal the truth.

I seriously begin to wonder whether the church has a sufficient number of men in high places with clean hands to staff a Synod with.

Adding to the cynicism, it seems at times that “conservatives” are just waiting to expose a “liberal” gay mafia, and “liberals” are just waiting to expose the “authoritarian” conservatives who hate women for taking out their sexuality on young men.

Since we all know that Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and other clergy have been known to indulge in various forms of sexual abuse and assault, I will make this partisan statement:

It seems that the more authoritarian and charismatic sects are the most likely to foster this pattern and fester in it. Liberals can, in their own way, be charismatic, if not authoritarian.

I wrote a lengthy article in a peer-reviewed journal on the sex abuse crisis, and found the evidence is inconclusive on whether the amount of sexual predation in the RCC is greater than in other institutions. Where the scandal clearly lies, in my opinion, is in the international cover-up sanctioned by canon law, in support of the notion that clergy aren’t answerable to secular law, and that the moral authority of the Church is more important than the truth. And yes, this liberal who left the RCC as a young man in part because of Cardinal Ratzinger can agree to this: Benedict was a vast improvement over John Paul II on the issue, and genuinely took some important steps toward cleaning house. He deserves more credit than he gets, as Leslie Fain notes.

I understand why people with a lot of their lives invested in the Roman church would find it psychologically difficult to leave it. However, things like this exposed, for people who find such behavior and its coverup horrifying and repulsive, make it completely unthinkable to ever consider joining that church.

At one point I thought, if every other church abandoned faith, then even with its significant errors and additions to the gospel, I might be forced to join.

Now, not even if it were the last organized religion on the planet.

Do you understand, Catholics, what you have done to the image of Christ by tolerating this for centuries?

I know a little about the Danneels story only because this is at least the second time it’s been cited here to discredit Pope Francis and his synod (“This is tbe kind of man Pope Francis chose…”).

One of the Dutch papers that published transcipts of the secret recordings this victim made of the two family meetings the Cardinal attended wouldn’t even describe what this was as an attempt at coverup, but rather perhaps a “type of containment.” Not telling was never the point, just how and when. No criminal charges of any kind were ever made.

Danneels himself said he’d been caught off guard, believing the family expected him, a family friend, to act as counselor for the purpose of family reconciliation. The abuse by a bishop who was also the victim’s uncle had taken place many years before. The victim planned to make it all public in the near future, but according to Danneels, what he’d been told was that the family was hoping to keep the whole affair as private as possible. The victim himself, who clearly had other plans, taped both meetings secretly and delivered the transcripts to the press. After listening to the tapes, Danneels himself said it sounded bad to him too and apologized, so there’s not much more to say about that.

As for the Pope’s judgment in inviting Danneels to the synod, he obviously doesn’t consider the aging cleric and scholar the “damaged goods” his opponents on the right would like to think. As a respected church progressive who was active at Vatican II, Danneels — like Francis today — is a perennial target of traditionalists who’ve gone as far as to accuse him of being a Freemason.

It might have been even bigger news if Francis had not asked him to this synod, since Danneels has belonged to the permanent secretariat of the episcopal synod since 2001.

The even greater scandal than Danneels is the fact that, for every Catholic furious about the injury and scandal that men like him have inflicted upon Holy Mother Church, there are a dozen shills like Mark Sheas to shower anathemas on anyone who protests.

Danneels himself said he’d been caught off guard, believing the family expected him, a family friend, to act as counselor for the purpose of family reconciliation. The abuse by a bishop who was also the victim’s uncle had taken place many years before. The victim planned to make it all public in the near future, but according to Danneels, what he’d been told was that the family was hoping to keep the whole affair as private as possible. The victim himself, who clearly had other plans, taped both meetings secretly and delivered the transcripts to the press. After listening to the tapes, Danneels himself said it sounded bad to him too and apologized, so there’s not much more to say about that.

Ah, well, he wasn’t PLANNING a cover-up, it just sort of happened, and the lil son-of-a-bitch trapped him into it!

God, the willingness of people to cover up for these incompetent and decrepit scoundrels is astounding. To Hell with them, and to Hell with you suck-ups and flirts for defending them.

If the Devil wanted to attack the true Church, he couldn’t have found a better way to do that than use wicked prelates in his service to get reactions like yours.

I’m afraid that’s a variation on the “shoot the messenger” theme. If the Devil has gotten wicked prelates into positions of power to elicit such reactions, maybe its not the One True Church at all? Apparently the gates of hell are prevailing?

Or, more likely, what keeps the church going is that millions of people find the familiar practices and what bits of doctrine they can follow comforting, and whatever is happening in high places, parish life will go on.

I still haven’t heard even a scintilla of an answer to the question, how could this perverse liberal-dominated synod be emerging, how could two thirds of the cardinals have voted for Bergoglio, when since the late 1970s all the appointments have been made by JP II and Ratzinger? Something has been happening that doesn’t really fit anyone’s Narrative.

First, I think Pope Francis is involving those chosen for the Synod on the Family because he wants a clear diversity of opinion.

Br. Brian, Pope Francis is not looking for a clear diversity of opinion. European nations with tiny decrepit churches are over-represented. Belgium has 3 bishops invited to the synod. Even these were cherry picked. The recently retired Achbishop Leonard was not invited while the pedophile protector Danneels was wheeled out of the nursing home to come. Germanic Cardinals and Bishops with few Catholics in their care are greatly over-represented and have set the agenda for the synod. The United States which has 250 bishops has only 3 invited. African nations with thriving and growing faithful and an abundance of vocations only have 1 bishop invited. The whole process is corrupt and orchestrated for a predetermined result.

“I still haven’t heard even a scintilla of an answer to the question, how could this perverse liberal-dominated synod be emerging, how could two thirds of the cardinals have voted for Bergoglio, when since the late 1970s all the appointments have been made by JP II and Ratzinger? Something has been happening that doesn’t really fit anyone’s Narrative.”

Uhhh, Wojtyla and Ratzinger were both counted among the liberals at Vatican II. They appointed exactly the kinds of gray-faced organization men that they, themselves, were. If your narrative is that JPII and Benedict were meeeeean old archconservatives and Francis is the liberal breath of fresh air than it is perhaps your narrative that needs reevaluation.

I understand why people with a lot of their lives invested in the Roman church would find it psychologically difficult to leave it.

Its not just that Fran… some people believe that it really IS the one true church established by Jesus and his apostles. I don’t, and for that matter, Rod doesn’t any more, but for those who believe it to be true, that means something. And there is a finite, but unmeasurable, possibility that they are right.

And Patrick is right, there are Protestant sects that beat kids to death and subject women to virtual rape disguised as “marriage.” (There, I put the word in quotes for a different purpose than discussing SSM).

I do believe that developing a church under a hierarchy that is presumed to be “the apple of God’s eye” has something to do with how this scandal could be so pervasive and enduring and how it could be perpetrated with impunity. But in Protestant sects, it can happen because The Pastor has no supervisor at all. Or, the Elder or the District Supervisor can be complicit.

But most of us still need a church, even though our gracious host thinks I am one. We should perhaps be wary of giving even that institution too much trust.

Those who are now nailing Francis are of course the same people who have objected to his course for other reasons. I don’t think anyone really knows what the legacy of Francis’s papacy will be.

I’m not going to comment here on the Synod, or on the merits of Cdl. Danneels, or of Pope Francis’ selection of the latter for the former. But I think it’s useful to highlight two major areas of disconnect, if you will, between the Church hierarchy’s handling of the sex abuse scandal, and how it is perceived by lay Catholics and others.

1) First of all, the Church has long been concerned with canon law and religious law and sin and repentance, not with the civil (state) law and criminal justice. It wasn’t too long ago that magistrates and princes did the Church’s bidding, and many places in Europe were essentially ruled by archbishops, who acted just like noblemen except for the matter of not producing heirs. Even today, the Church generally is not concerned with the secular law.

2) The Church also, being a denomination of (non-preterministic) Christianity, is also extremely concerned with redemption and salvation and grace. Some sins are venal, some are mortal, and some merit excommunication, but according to most Christian faiths, including Roman Catholicism, the grace of God through Christ is available to anyone via true contrition and repentance. Civil law and attitudes, OTOH, are frequently far less forgiving. “Past behavior is a predictor of future behavior” is a well-established principle; words of repentance are often disbelieved (no matter how tearfully given), and some offenses are held out as unforgiveable–once you cross that line, there is no coming back. Child molestation is one of these; and aiding and abetting child molestors is often seen in the same category.

Thus we have the spectacle of the Church viewing the misdeeds of its own as matters for confession and penance–it wouldn’t surprise me if Danneels has confessed whatever sins he may have committed in this matter (and likely many others we know little about), received absolution, and is thus considered to be in good standing by the Pope and others within the Vatican. OTOH, we have the example here of Rod calling the Cardinal “wicked”–perhaps he is indeed, I don’t know–and many calls elsewhere for clergy involved in the sex-abuse scandal to be sacked wholesale, and driven from the Church like snakes from Ireland.

Again, I’m not defending Danneels in particular–I know very little about the man, other than what is related above. But I find the very differing perspectives interesting.

In partial defense of Fran (hey–we’re on the same side for the first time, Fran!), under canon law for centuries, and as codified in the Pio-Benedictine Code of of Canon Law, it was a delict (offense) punishable with excommunication, to participate in a secular law enforcement investigation or trial against a cleric. The express canons stating so (Canons 2334, et seq) were removed in the 1984 revised Code promulgated by JP II, but several canons presupposing the principle were left in place, and of course JP II was dreadful on the subject, protecting Degollado, refusing attempted clerical resignations, and blaming victims and the media for causing scandal. Ratzinger obeyed him in all these things, though, as I mentioned earlier, did undertake some basic reforms of the Church’s internal processing of complaints. But he never expressly forbade cover ups of the kind required by the old Code, and defensible under the new. All this, and if haven’t even mentioned the sex abuse specific Crimen Sollicitationis, in which John XXIII reaffirmed an older edict which applied these canon law principles to sex abuse cases, and placed terrible pressures on victims to remain silent.

So your instinct that clericalism could have role here is borne out by the evidence. And I understand Fran’s wrath on this subject, because the culture of the cover up goes terribly deep.

I agree Anglocat, the claim of clerical immunity was an abomination… as was the institution of “the Bishop’s prison.” Fran’s wrath is entirely understandable. But so is Erin’s common sense approach, and for that matter, JohnE_o’s.